ASP.NET Beta 2 Release Goes Live

Microsoft released the beta 2 versions of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET at the TechEd 2001 conference in June. In a surprising announcement, the company outlined special licensing terms that allow users to go live with production Web sites developed with prerelease ASP.NET technology, which is still part of the .NET beta process. Under the normal terms of Microsoft beta test licenses, developers are prohibited from using beta code in public tests, as well as from revealing the results of beta testing. In this case, Microsoft has chosen to release developers from those restrictions, a first to our knowledge.

.NET Beta on Schedule

The beta 2 versions of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio.NET provide improved levels of performance and documentation, and fix numerous problems uncovered during beta 1. Also, a redistributable version of the .NET Framework is now available at the beta 2 site. (This is the version of the .NET Framework that will be distributed with .NET applications.)